Meet Meek Mobilize Grantee

As the founder and CEO of Metro Mommy Agency, Esther McCant has provided labor and postpartum support to over hundreds of mothers during their birthing experience in South Florida through childbirth education, breastfeeding support, and other postpartum doula support services. She is not only a Commonsense Childbirth certified doula but also serves as a maternal health consultant, lactation counselor, and certified HypnoBirthing Childbirth Educator. More recently, she completed the Advanced Doula Skills Training to better support high-risk doula and breastfeeding clients who struggle with diabetes, high blood pressure, anemia, or dehydration.

Currently, Esther is working to increase breastfeeding rates & reduce infant mortality as the co-lead for the Healthy Baby Taskforce, a subcommittee of the Consortium for a Healthier Miami-Dade County. This local community committee addresses health issues for children. She also serves as the Education and Communication/Community Action Network Coordinator for the Jasmine Project, a program that provides wraparound services to reduce infant mortality rates in Miami Gardens, Opa-Locka, and North Miami. Additionally,  Esther serves as the founder and director of the Metro Mommy Agency Doula Mentorship program where she provides ongoing mentorship to 27+ doulas located in Florida, Georgia, and Hawaii and for the Southern Birth Justice Network doula mentees.

Metro Mommy Agency was recently awarded federal grant funds to support her work to improve the lives of families in Miami-Dade County. Through the CDC/DOH funded MOMCHA (Making Optimal Maternal Child Health Accessible) Program, she developed a curriculum, “What Do Doulas Do” to train healthcare providers on the role of doulas and integrate doulas into their referrals. Her work in the maternal child health space includes participating in the Respectful Maternity Care Collaborative (RMCC) through the National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC) and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Birth Equity  Accountability through Measurement Advisory Panel. Serving as a Master Doula trainer for the South Florida Black Mothers Care Plan a collaborative with Florida International University, The Gathering Place and Southern Birth Justice Network, she teaches anti-racism and anti-bias training to healthcare providers, medical students and aspiring public health professionals. Esther also provides innovative insight as founding Partner & Collaborator on BreastfeedMIAMI, a county wide initiative to improve breastfeeding initiation and duration rates. Esther has been featured as a speaker for the recent 2022 Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA) Black Maternal Health Conference and Training Institute and Birth & Breastfeeding Conference. During that BMMA conference, she had an opportunity to highlight her work in the Black Mothers Care Plan as well as partnership with NBEC and Human Rights Watch to create a first of its kind doula training on climate

change and environmental  justice. She has advocated before elected officials through the Carrie Meek Foundation as a Meek Mobilize grantee, SantLa Haitian Neighborhood Center, Live Healthier Miami Gardens, Southern Birth Justice Network, and WIC and has also been featured in VoyageMIA online magazine and the Rachel Tourgeman Podcast. Her ability to speak was highlighted when her pitch won in Mayor Cava’s StartUp FIU BizUp Pitch Competition in September 2022. She also shares wisdom and insight on her experience mothering and homeschooling her four sons in the Miami Mom Collective blog and in her R.O.S.E (Reaching Our  Sisters Everywhere) sponsored breastfeeding support group, Miami

Mocha Mamas.